No, In primary they give it to anyone. Some actually have no clue at all.

is it necessary though, I would say so, as art develops many sensories. The good schools have people who do have a background in art, the bad ones, well, you can tell really. they tend to stick to the QCA stuff.

Indeed, how many times do we see primary school teachers on this very site asking for help because they have been landed with doing an arts task that they have not got first hand experience of?

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I agree, and it is rather saddening that it happens too. I mean, when they do their primary BEds, are they not meant to specialise? And if schools are recruiting and know they need an art coordinator, should they not say so too in the ad?

As someone said, you cannot really get it out of and teach it out of a book, it is a practical subject and you really do need some skill.

I say this as I have read many starting a new job and then being landed with the role and having no clue at all, which makes me think they did a terrible job at interviewing.

On Primary PGCE you specialise in one subject area including art so there are going to be some teachers taking responsibility for coordinating art across the primary school with an art background. Other teachers like myself and I have no formal qualification in art, coordinate art because they love it and really enjoy teaching it.
I was lucky enough to have a mentor during my PGCE who had completely scrapped the QCA scheme of work for art in her school and the standard of work produced by pupils there was amazing. This was a great experience for me to start from and I have just built on from there.
Sometimes it's just finding time to experiment with ideas at home and then take an initial idea into the classroom and let the class have plenty of freedom to explore ideas of their own. Some of the best work produced by KS2 at my school was the silk painting done in the summer term last year and as I am writing this I am trying out different ideas for printing before my class start work on pattern next month.

You don't need to be an art expert - you just need a clear idea of the skills that need to be taught and progressed during primary so that pupils can move onto secondary art with good basic skills and an appreciation of work by a wide range of artists. I also think that going out into the community and finding local artists who can come in and work with the class is invaluable.

I am a KS2 teacher very interested in teaching Art in High school. Have you any advice for me? I have extensive experience with the year 6 pupils and have excellent class control. My formal pupils frequently come back to visit from Highj School and comment on how much they enjoyed my Art lessons. What is the best way for me to switch to Secondary teaching and would it be possible to do part time teaching initially.

Do you have a degree in Art or some sort of Design field? If not, forget it - teaching secondary Art needs a higher level of practical expertise and a much much wider subject knowledge than you will be using for Year 6 teaching.
As a first step, I would advise you to spend a significant amount of time in a secondary school Art dept, observing what goes on in lessons especially at Year 9 and above. This is the only way to get a decent insight and even then, you won't see a lot of what goes on 'behind the scenes'. It took me 5 years to feel comfortable with teaching KS4 Art and above, and even now, 9 years in, it's an ongoing learning curve!

Hi,
We have scrapped the QCA palns for Art and are currently at the curriculum mapping stage. We are probably going to follow a skills based approached linked to topic work throughout the school. Any ideas would be appreciated and any examples of schemes you have built.
Many thanks
PW